Töltött karalábé — kohlrabi stuffed with meat and rice in sour cream sauce

Bring 500 ml water to a boil, add the rice, and simmer gently for 5–6 minutes after the boil returns: it should only soften partly. Drain thoroughly, discard the water, and spread the rice on a plate to cool. Finely chop the onion and soften it in all the oil for about 5–6 minutes without browning; transfer it with the fat to a bowl and cool. Prepare the kohlrabi during cooling; both rice and onion must be cool before mixing with raw meat and egg.

Choose firm young kohlrabi without woody flesh. After peeling and removing tough bases, slice off thin tops and hollow the bulbs with a teaspoon or melon baller, leaving walls about 5–7 mm thick and bases about 1 cm thick; do not pierce them. If necessary, trim the undersides very slightly so the bulbs stand steadily. Chop all the scooped-out flesh, tops, and edible trimmings into pieces about 1 cm and save for the sauce. Do not use the leaves, peels, or tough bases.

Combine the meat with the cooled rice, onion and its oil, whole egg, 4 g salt, pepper, and 5 g finely chopped parsley. Mix only until evenly combined. Fill the bulbs loosely to about 1 cm below the rims, without packing, so the rice can expand further. Shape all the remaining filling into meatballs about 3 cm in diameter; these will cook with the vegetables.

Spread all the chopped flesh over the bottom of a wide lidded pot about 24–26 cm in diameter and about 4 l in capacity. Stand the bulbs upright with openings facing up and place the meatballs alongside. Add 800 ml water and the remaining 4 g salt; the liquid should reach roughly three-quarters of the way up the bulbs. Add some of the reserved hot water if necessary. Bring to a gentle boil, cover, and simmer gently for about 50–60 minutes from this point. The kohlrabi must be tender, the rice fully soft, and the filling and meatballs thoroughly cooked in the center too; extend cooking as needed. Check the liquid level, topping up only with the listed reserve water, and do not stir vigorously.

Carefully transfer the cooked bulbs and meatballs to a clean plate and cover briefly while making the sauce. Leave all the flesh and liquid in the pot; if there is a lot of very thin sauce, simmer it for a few minutes without a lid before adding the sour cream. Mix the sour cream and flour until smooth. Gradually stir in about 150 ml hot liquid taken from the same pot to temper the mixture.

Lower the heat and pour the tempered sour cream into the pot, stirring the liquid between the kohlrabi pieces constantly. Heat gently for 5–7 minutes until the flour cooks and the sauce thickens slightly; do not let it boil hard. Add the remaining 10 g chopped parsley. Return all the bulbs and meatballs with their plate juices, spoon sauce over them, and heat for another 2–3 minutes over low heat.

Place a bulb on each deep plate and divide all the meatballs and all the sauce with its kohlrabi pieces among them. Serve warm as a complete dish. Cut into the kohlrabi as you eat, scooping up the filling with the tender wall and sauce.